KABUL: The rival parties in Afghanistan have come to an agreement to transfer high-profile Taliban prisoners to Qatar ahead of the intra-Afghan peace talks that will begin “in a matter of days”, Al Jazeera reported quoting officials from the group and the Afghan government.
“There could be six to nine people [transfered to Qatar],” a source said. The move is seen as a compromise deal made possible after prolonged negotiations with multiple regional and international powers.
“We had a few options for the Taliban after the objections raised by European countries created another roadblock for intra-Afghan dialogue. The most amicable way was to replicate what was achieved with US forces to send these inmates to a guarantor country,” the source added.
An Afghan delegation will fly to Doha on Friday but it was not immediately clear when the talks would start.
Talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban were set to begin in March but were repeatedly postponed over disagreements on a prisoner exchange, a pre-condition for the dialogue.
Under the troop withdrawal deal agreed between the Taliban and Washington in February, the Afghan government was due to free 5,000 Taliban prisoners while the Taliban were meant to free 1,000 prisoners belonging to the Afghan government before the talks could take place.
However, the Afghan government had hesitated at the release of a final 400 prisoners. This is because some of the prisoners due to be released were convicted of killing Western citizens and their countries had objected to their release.
“Foreign forces occupying Afghanistan were killed in battles. They were in Afghanistan illegally and we were fighting them. We have not raised issues of violations and thousands of our people being killed by the foreigners because we want to turn over a new leaf and work towards bringing peace to Afghanistan,” Suhail Shaheen, a spokesman for the Taliban’s political office in Doha, told Al Jazeera last week.
“If occupation powers insist on reviving old issues, it would hamper the peace process.”